5th of July
by Brown-Coat
Summary: The Avengers wake up after their Independence Day (and birthday) celebration.


_**Author's Note: I missed Independence Day, but I still wanted to write something for a new relationship I have somehow stumbled into. As well as old ones. Leave a review at the bottom!  
**_

Independence Day was one of the Avengers' favorite holidays. Not only were they able to celebrate the country they lived in, they were able to celebrate the man who had come to stand for it. July 4th was Steve Roger's birthday, a fact that no member of the team was likely to let him forget, and so the holiday carried a very special weight to it.

For those reasons, that particular night always carried a very strong mix of fireworks and obnoxious noise levels. This, of course, led to a very interesting following morning for the entire team.

* * *

Tony, for starters, found himself strung up in a hammock inside his lab. This was not unusual, as he spent many nights in that very position after working for an insanely long time on a project. The strange thing was that Pepper Potts was twisted into the hammock as well. Stranger still was the fact that they were both partially encased in one of his suits. Apparently he had tried to armor up during the night, and he and the CEO of his company had been near enough together that the suit couldn't differentiate between them. Pepper woke up suddenly and jerked the hammock as she flailed and tried to find a reference point. Tony felt himself being violently forced around until the woman finally determined where she was, then determined it an acceptable situation to be in. She smiled as she silently settled in closer.

With a shrug and a sigh, he curled closer to the redhead and almost immediately fell back asleep.

* * *

Bruce quietly started form his sleep when he heard something in the hallway outside his bedroom. He was surprised, yet suspected he had been the only one to make it back to their room during the night, and would not have found it unexpected to find an avenger sprawled out in the hallway using wrapping paper as blankets. When he checked, he actually found that it was Sam, Steve's friend that he had brought back to the tower with him for the party. With a smile, Bruce returned to his room and produced a blanket. He draped it over his honorary teammate and then shut and locked the door behind him.

The scientist moved to his desk and quickly glanced around his room to make sure it was empty when he saw the icon of his webcam blinking almost frantically. The man quickly opened the icon settled himself into his desk chair. His face broke into an even larger smile before when he saw the face of Betty Ross appear on his computer screen.

* * *

Natasha awoke and immediately took stock of her situation. She was on a couch in the living room of the top floor of the building. She was beneath a pile of blankets and surrounded by littered pizza boxes, hamburger buns, and wrapping paper for Steve's presents. She groaned and stretched and made an attempt to get up, until one of her blankets moved and she was shoved back down. With a grunt the assassin pushed her face out of the couch cushion and attempted to remove the unwieldy blanket, which quickly revealed itself to be a person.

"Clint," she hissed in an attempt to be quiet yet loud enough for her partner to hear. "Get off." The archer groaned and moved his arms, but remained where he was. "I'm going to start kicking soon," she warned. She made good on her warning quickly enough, but the blankets had snared her legs to the point that she was unable to give the man the proper pain level. She finally tried to shake him off, but the archer stubbornly refused to be moved by her smaller frame. The assassin grew frustrated and continuously threatened the man happily sprawled over her, who was too tired to be properly terrified by the words she threw at him. Finally, she said, "I'll make you breakfast if you get off." The archer breathed out, then finally rolled slightly and thudded onto the ground. With a smirk, Natasha readjusted her blankets and settled farther into the couch. "I lied," she muttered. Then she felt a hand grab her left arm and pull her to the ground, where she landed beside her partner.

"I figured," he answered sleepily as he draped an arm over her shoulders and returned to a near-catatonic state.

"You owe me breakfast for that." Natasha muttered and moved closer to Clint.

* * *

Thor never truly fell asleep. He was content to instead collapse onto the mountain of 2-liter bottles of heavily caffeinated soda that he had personally managed to down and feel his molecules vibrate at the speed of what Jane would call "bad decision-making". With that thought, the Asgardian prince realized that he hadn't seen her for several hours. _To be fair,_ he admitted to himself, _I haven't seen **anyone**_ _for several hours_. Perhaps she had fallen asleep. The Odinsson decided to her. She might be in trouble, after all.

After three failed attempts to rise from his plastic throne and one increasing Pop-Tart and _Mountain Dew_ -fueled headache later, the prince decided it would be best to allow his fair lady a few more hours' rest. That was the chivalrous thing to do, after all.

* * *

Steve woke up all at once. He hadn't heard anything, he couldn't sense anything wrong. His body had merely decided that it was time to be awake. The super soldier glanced around the unfamiliar room he found himself in and realized he was in one of Stark's many home-theaters. He wasn't exactly surprised to find himself in a new place this morning - he didn't get drunk, but that didn't mean that sleep deprivation didn't play a factor in his life. Especially following one of the parties that his team had taken to throwing on occasion. However, there was something unfamiliar about this situation.

As it turned out, that thing manifested itself in the form of a young woman curled up in Roger's arms.

The captain remembered the night with perfect clarity - the music, the fireworks, the Tony being annoying. Eventually he remembered dragging a sofa into the kitchen and sitting down on it, waiting for Thor to finish cooking his Pop-Tarts along with the team and several of the "honorary Avengers". With that, he came to the conclusion that he had fallen asleep waiting for food, and somehow become tangled up with the young woman beside him. Trying not to wake her, Steve slowly turned the woman's face toward his and found himself looking at Maria Hill.

The soldier immediately straightened up and sat rigidly. That was not expected. However, he admitted to himself that holding the sleeping former deputy director of SHIELD was not . . . unpleasant. Unfortunately, that was when he heard someone approach the hallway. She groggily lifted her head and looked at Steve, then past him and at the shadow growing larger on the wall in the hallway leading away from the kitchen. Then she was sitting on the other side of the couch before Steve had time to blink.

The misshapen shadow from the hallway resolved itself into the form of Clint Barton with Natasha Romanoff hanging from his back. They continuously bickered at each other, both claiming that the other owed them breakfast or some other form of consolation. Barton marched past Steve and Maria with a nod, and Natasha promised them from her position dangling from Clint's shoulders that between the two assassins, breakfast would be ready in twenty minutes.

The captain let out a rush of air that he hadn't realized he'd been holding when they turned their backs to the couch he and Miss Hill occupied. Unfortunately, the former SHIELD agents were quickly replaced by the billionaire and the executive of the group, respectively. Stark stumbled into the kitchen complaining about food, closely followed by Pepper. They hardly regarded Steve or Maria and made their way to the fridge, where Tony raided whatever leftover food hadn't already been claimed by Barton, and Pepper got a water bottle.

After them, Bruce came walking happily to the kitchen. He smiled at Steve, Maria, and everyone else in the kitchen before he was greeted by the familiar complaints from Tony about how it was "unfair to be that happy this early in the morning".

Immediately following Bruce, Jane squeaked her way into the kitchen with Thor on a spare gurney. The "space viking" as Clint named him was happily humming and clutching an empty box of Pop-Tarts and half-full bottle of Coca-Cola. Jane sent a tired smile to the two on the couch as she passed them to wheel Thor directly into the growing crowd of people in the Avengers kitchen. Thor smiled dreamily and snorted unflatteringly as he slowly rolled past them.

Steve looked over Maria and grinned at the surprised look she still wore from the tired and over-stimulated superheroes that had been paraded in front of her. He knew she'd get used to it at some point if she continued working for Tony, but today did not seem to be that day. Steve opened his mouth to ask her a question, but was interrupted when he heard Clint start whining that if they wanted food, they had to come help cook. Natasha quickly stepped on the archer's foot and gave him a meaningful look, and the archer amended his statement to,

"Do whatever Nat says. Just don't let her hurt me anymore."

Rogers slowly got his feet into a stable position and prepared to stand, but couldn't help but slow down and look over at the woman still sitting on the couch as he realized something. Hill may not have expected to be presented with a veritable elephant-line of Avengers that morning, and she might not have intended to spend a night cuddling with Captain America, but one thing _had_ been in her control. Steve's smile widened when he confirmed his suspicion that Maria hadn't released his hand underneath the blankets that hid them from the others in the room.

The woman smiled back at him easily, then reluctantly let go of his hand and stood with him to enter the throng of super heroes.

* * *

Despite the aggravation and the bickering, each Avenger considered that particular year as having a successful 5th of July.


End file.
